Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Robert J. Maxwell It's Abilene, Kansas, the end of the cattle drive from Texas. (Cf., "Red River.") The town depends on the money the rough-hewn cowboys bring in. One side of Texas Street is all saloons; the other is all merchants or, as they're usually called, goods and mercantile shops. The town exists in a steady state, moderated at time by the town marshal, Scott, and the cowardly county sheriff, Buchanan. One day a flood of homesteaders plods through and takes up residence on farm lands just outside. They fence off the land and the cattlemen don't like it. (Cf., "Shane".) The head cattleman hires a gunfighter. (Loc. cit.) Conflict ensues. The farmers win and the cattlemen are tamed. Scott marries the right girl (Dvorak).Edgar Buchanan, when we first see him, muses about "going back to dentistry." Before films, Buchanan was a dentist like his father. He was a graduate of what is now Oregon Health & Science University School of Dentistry. He moved his practice to California before entering films.The moral calculus is confusing. I was never very good at calculus to begin with but I could usually come up with a decent gestalt. Not here. Let me see. The cattlemen discover their trail is fenced off by farmers, so they destroy the fence and several homesteaders. Everyone in town anticipates their coming to wreck the store that sold the barbed wire to the farmers. And, as expected, a horde of cowpunchers rides portentously into town. Do they attack the barbed wire store? No. They bust into the closed saloons. Dvorak owns one of the saloons. Why doesn't she try to stop the chaos? A young, headstrong farmer, Lloyd Bridges, leads the homesteaders onto the land and fences it in, claiming it's government land, we have a right to fence it off. If the government land is free, don't the cattlemen have a right to use the land, pari passu? Why are the farmers treated as the "good guys" when they could have avoided conflict by leaving an open path through their many acres for the drovers to use? They might have charged a small fee.Scott is his usual taciturn self, but he smiles tolerantly more often. Buchanan is sometimes amusing. He loves to win card games, so when he runs into a redneck farmer he's eager to teach him how to play. When the hands are dealt, the tyro asks, "What did you say was higher -- a King or a Queen?" Buchanan leans over and examines the other guy's cards. "Mmmm. Let's deal another hand." It wouldn't have been funny if Buchanan had simply lied.Dvorak is pretty in an unusual way. She has a great smile and her eyes are startling. And she did a memorable hootch-kootchie in "Scarface." Here she sings too much as a dance hall girl. And her name -- I never know how to pronounced it. Is it pronounced as it's spelled? Or is it pronounced "Dvor-zhak" like the Czech composer's? And what the hell was the matter with her real name, Anna McKim? Somebody's pulling the wool over somebody's eyes around here.It occurred to me while watching this that three of the community forces involved here correspond rather neatly to three of the American regions described in Colin Woodard's book, "American Nation." The homesteaders are Woodard's "Yankees" who migrate as a cohesive community full of ambition. The rowdy cowboys are Woodard's "Appalachians" who reject regulations and believe a man is responsible for his own actions. Scott is a "Borderlander," like a Philadelphian, who is tolerant and peaceful and egalitarian. There have been reviews claiming that this is some kind of hidden gem, a secret cinematic triumph, but it really isn't. It's a decent Western. Randolph Scott never offends. I kind of enjoyed it.

Uriah43 Five years after the end of the Civil War the town of Abilene, Kansas serves as the end of the trail for the cattle drives from Texas and is dependent upon them for their economic well-being. However, times are changing and farmers are moving in from the East to start new lives in this area. Randolph Scott, as the town marshal named "Dan Mitchell" realizes that the cattlemen and the farmers cannot mutually coexist and trouble is about to start. He also has another problem (which most men would envy) which is that two beautiful women are in love with him. The first is a saloon dancer by the name of "Rita" (Ann Dvorek) and the other is the daughter of one of the town merchants named "Sherry Balder" (Rhonda Fleming). Neither wants him to risk his life by getting involved in the violence that is likely to occur. At any rate, rather than divulging what happens next I will just say that this is a fairly good western which manages to entertain for the most part. Now, normally I don't mind a film in black and white, but there was a reason Rhonda Fleming was nicknamed "the Queen of Cinemascope" and although she still looked great, black and white just doesn't do her any justice. But that's just my opinion.

Arlis Fuson Scott plays a marshal in a town thats being over ran by both farmers and cattlemen. The farmers wanna settle down and build a life and the Cattle ranchers just wanna use the land for their cows to roam on. The town becomes one big feud and the marshal is right in the middle trying to keep peace, even though most wanna leave it alone, including county officials.I am a huge fan of spaghetti westerns and even some of John Fords work, but these older American westerns with their happy go lucky good guy heroes have never been my thing.It's pretty basic and the acting is okay, I liked some of the bad guys best. Lloyd Bridges is always good and it was nice to see him in an older movie. The actresses in these old movies are so dramatic and are so difficult to watch. This movie had a bit of a comedy side and that made it more appealing.This movie had some laughs, some good fist fights and good actors (except the women), but it couldn't please me in the slightest. I would suggest it to people who like older westerns, but no one else. 1/10

JohnHowardReid A minor western classic, detailing the conflict between cattle men and homesteaders in Abilene, Kansas, in the 1870s, Abilene Town has much to commend it, not the least of which is the superb black-and-white cinematography by Archie J. Stout. One of the chief beneficiaries of Stout's fine work is Ann Dvorak, who has never looked more attractive than she does here. Her singing is a treat too, as she renders three or four saucy songs with admirable vitality, backed up by Sammy Lee's chorus girls.Scott is more than his usual competent self. In fact he gives one of the best performances of his career. Forced to straddle both sides of the fence, the marshal's sympathies are clearly with the raucous cowboys rather than the calculating merchants or the scruffy homesteaders. The interesting thing is that the script obviously favors the "good" people, but Scott brilliantly plays against the screenplay, his carefully controlled poker face revealing to the audience with just an occasional fleeting expression, a glance, a gesture, which side he favors in his heart, and his inner conflict that forces him to fight on the side that he knows will survive. Scott's adversaries on the "wrong" side of the street are forcefully played by Richard Hale, Jack Lambert and Dick Curtis. On the right side, he has to contend with Howard Freeman, Rhonda Fleming and Lloyd Bridges. Finally, he is forced to watch "his" Abilene self-destruct. "This is how a tough town dies—not with a roar, but with a whine."